One thing I often find myself thinking on is how many games I skip due to their narrative focus. The most succinct reason would be a lack of meaningful agency. I'm given control of a character but at best can only choose among a small handful of meaningful actions when it comes to story content. And this bothers me.
I think the popularity of "choices matter" type games have made this even worse for me. Making a "choice" in these games feels like rolling a dice and seeing which surprise the developer has decided will happen. Actually influencing what happens then requires googling before you save a puppy just in case it has rabies and will then inexorably kill another quest npc an hour later.
There's no real solutions to any of this; it's just how story driven games are going to work. But it does make me feel weird skipping most of them in favor of games where the story can largely be ignored.
